Data-driven business: Use real numbers to improve your business by 352%

Every organisation likes to think it makes decisions based on evidence. Not just any evidence, but the best evidence. But the reality is that we still make a lot of decisions based on gut feel. We do things because they seem right. In Data-driven business Tim Phillips shows that our gut misleads us. We are slaves to all sorts of biases that that we feel apply to other people, never to us. We cling to our beliefs too long, we listen too much to the people who shout loudest, we change our opinion based on how well information is presented, we overvalue quick results, we don’t plan for rare events, and we credit ourselves for being clever when we were just lucky. When we trust our gut, we don’t follow the numbers: we don’t measure costs, because we are too busy measuring the benefits. We assume that X caused Y, but don’t measure whether it did. We don’t bother to find out the real situation before we make a decision, and we don’t compare what happens to what we planned. There are two main reasons: many of us don’t know how to measure or look for the information we need; and most of us wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do with the data even if it fell onto our desk. Data-driven business is about how to recognise when gut feel needs a helping hand, and how to read what the numbers tell you better than the next guy. Data-driven business is about how to: • recognise when your decisions need more data; • look for the data you need. Some of it may be sitting there, waiting, and a lot of it is free; • make simple insights out of what you know already, by measuring or modelling it better; • avoid the basic errors that come from jumping to conclusions based on bad data or bad logic. The professionals are revolutionising what we can do with data; this book shows how you can tap into it cheaply and quickly in order to gain a business advantage. And it’s about how you can create a team that trusts data and acts on it at the right time.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Let's get datafied 1. What is datafication? 2. Learning to count 3. Time is money 4. What would Twitter do? 5. Size does matter Part 2: Five data basics 6. Keep your data alive 7. Draw a table 8. Draw a graph 9. Find a trend 10. Find an average Part 3: Where are you now? 11. What does that flashing light mean? 12. Track your changes 13. Errors add up Part 4. Where are you going? 14. Forward guidance 15. What could possibly go wrong? 16. What’s the worst than can happen? 17. Is it worth it? Part 5. Arguing using facts 18. The raw and the cooked 19. How the sausage was made 20. Correlation is not causation 21. Too much information 22. Mr Right, or Mr Right Now Part 6. The data-driven manager 23. Copying isn’t managing 24. Intuition or data 25. What if? 26. The limits of certainty 27. Spend money where it works best 28. Know your potential customer 29. It never ends Part 7. Why you need to be data-driven 30. Six reasons not to trust your gut Resources and further reading

About the Author :
Tim Phillips is a freelance journalist, writing about business, technology, social change and innovation. He has written for The Wall Street Journal Europe, The International Herald Tribune, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Independent and The Daily Express among others. For two years he was a technology and internet columnist for the Guardian.